Suffering Well--A Savior Acquainted with Suffering

I have the privilege of serving in a ministry which provides help for women who, as children, suffered verbal, physical, emotional, sexual, and/or spiritual abuse. Because of the abuse they endured, many come to us struggling in their relationship with God. This is especially true if the abuse occurred in families who attended church.

Imagine what it would be like for a little girl who suffered frequent beatings and had to sit by her abuser in church with her scars and bruises carefully covered. Imagine what it would be like for a young girl whose view of herself was shredded by harsh words she heard at home and then had to sing songs about the love of God she believed she would never be good enough to possess. Imagine what it is like for a young girl who sits in church with parents who refuse to meet her basic needs causing her to feel invisible and overlooked even by the God to which she prayed who didn't provide either. Imagine what it would be like for a little girl who sits in a pew, knowing she will go home with a parent who will threaten her life again and again while the other parent stands idly by. Imagine what it would be like for a young teen who is forced to sit in church, listening to sermons taught by a pastor who robbed her of her innocence. Imagine what it is like for a little girl to be shamed by parents so legalistic grace was nonexistent in the home.

When we are dealing with women who've suffered greatly, we don't offer meaningless platitudes, because those sayings may make us feel better while rubbing grains of salt into deeply wounded hearts. We also don't shame them for struggling to trust God, because their ability to trust authority figures was broken when parents tainted their view of God through their actions and their inaction, their words and their lack of words. We don't tell them to simply get over it, because to do so would inhibit them from ever developing intimacy with the Savior who so wants to have a deep, meaningful relationship with them.

When we begin working with victims, we often have them draw a picture of where God was when they were being traumatized. Those pictures often reveal how they feel about God, but are too afraid and too ashamed to say it aloud. Some draw God without ears revealing that in their heart of hearts they believe He turned a deaf ear to their cry for help. Some who have taken on the shame that belonged to a perpetrator often draw God without eyes because as much as they wanted Him to rescue them, they didn't want Him to see them in their shame. Some draw God without arms, because He didn't stop the painful events and, as children, they wondered if God was less powerful than those wounding them. We give the ladies many opportunities to express feelings, ask hard questions, share their dark thoughts about God, and the confusing emotions that come with life that doesn't seem to matching what they think the Scriptures say. We don't try to answer their hard questions because we don't really know the answers. Nor do we rush them to trust, because they first have to acknowledge and express their unbelief, their misunderstandings, and their mistrust of God before they can change. We know the enemy has done everything he can to distort the image of God and he has done everything he can to destroy the hearts of children when God was calling them to Himself.

After they've had time to express their pain and their confusion, we begin to talk about Jesus and His life here on earth. Because of their pain and confusion, many never spent time processing what it would have been like to be the Savior who Isaiah called a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. They haven't taken the time to think about Him being a Savior who left glory, taking on the limitations of a human body that experienced human physical hunger and physical pain and who walked among people, experiencing hatred and sin perpetrated against Him. They haven't taken the time to realize that He, like them, was harshly and unfairly criticized for crossing social barriers to minister to Gentiles, to women, to children, to the ill, to the poor, to those broken by sin, and to those captured by demonic spirits. Many haven't thought about Him as being a Savior that was, like them, accused of being crazy. Many have never considered how Jesus might have been emotionally impacted when He, like them, was misunderstood, lied about, mocked, and hated.

Many haven't put much thought into Jesus' time in the Garden, where He withdrew with three of His closest disciples to pray. Many didn't realize He told His friends His sorrow was so deep He felt like He could die, only to have the words fall on ears that didn't seem to comprehend what He was saying to them. They haven't contemplated the anguish He experienced that was so deep He sweat big drops tinged with blood, a feeling they experienced to some degree growing up in a home filled with rage, chaos, terror, and abuse. Many hadn't considered how alone He might have felt when He found His closest friends couldn't even stay awake to pray with Him, much like they felt when they told and no one helped. Many hadn't truly realized He, too, had experienced betrayal as a disciple lead authorities to Him. Nor, had they considered what Jesus might have felt when all of His friends deserted Him and His closest denied Him thrice. Many hadn't reflected on what it would have felt like for Jesus to bear the sin of all of mankind--each and every ugly, hurtful, and hateful sin in His body. 

 Even though many know in their heads Jesus was beaten and crucified, they haven't considered the impact of this truth on their lives. As we meditate together on the Story of Calvary, they begin to understand Jesus gets their pain, because He went through similar pain for them. They begin to realize the love He had drove Him to take on their sin as He bore God's wrath against it. They begin to understand He gets the feeling of being degraded because He was stripped of His clothing and hung on the cross, naked and exposed. They begin to grasp that He understands the pain of being physically wounded through violence and the emotional pain of having others blame them for things for which they weren't responsible. They begin to hold onto the fact that the Lord understands the heart-wrenching grief and the sorrow of being rejected by those who were supposed to love us the most. They begin to accept that He knows what it feels like to have those closest to them turn their backs on them when they were facing horrible pain and great fear. They begin to see He understands their feelings associated with being oppressed and the feelings associated with suffering the pain and consequences of others' sin. They begin to trust when they realize Jesus even understands the feeling of feeling forsaken by the God who could have protected, but didn't, for He cried out, “My God, why have you forsaken me?”    

Over the years I, like them, have come to realize Jesus is the ultimate example of what it means to suffer well. He never lost sight of the fact He was loved by His Father even though people hated Him. He stopped believing His life had godly purpose even though others declared it didn't. He always fulfilled His God-given purpose even when others tried to stop Him. He always chose to obey His Father even when it meant He would greatly suffer. He always maintained integrity, even though others around Him lost theirs. He always lived out of His true identity as God's Son even though others claimed He was a son of Satan. He chose to put aside temporary comfort for eternal good and He chose to endure the pain of the cross for the joy set before Him.

I have also come to realize that it was His eternal perspective that allowed His suffering to reveal to us the width, the breadth, the heights, and the depths of God's great love. We are living in perilous times and Christ told us we would suffer if  we followed Him. Because of this we want to remember in our suffering others may be drawn to the Savior. When we keep our eyes on Jesus, our suffering fulfills its purpose and accomplishes sanctifying work as it draws us into a deeper relationship with God who can meet our deepest needs.

Even victims who come face to face with the traumatized Savior can truly grasp that His trauma was the ultimate expression of God's love for them and that kind of love cries out for a response of deep abiding trust which allows wounded souls to find healing and deeply thirsty hearts to be satisfied by the love of God. A Savior who has suffered much understands pain. A Savior who has suffered much is a Savior deeply wounded souls can trust.

When Did I Sign up for This? -- Lent #2

"I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace.

In the world you will have tribulation.

But take heart; I have overcome the world." 

John 16:33

 

I am a mother of five children. The first four were twenty months apart and the last one came three years later. I loved being a mom and loved hearing their voices asking important questions like, "Have you ever seen a muscle as big as this one?" I loved the feel of their small hands on my arm as they patted to get my attention. I loved the kitchen as they washed dishes that would need to be washed again. I loved the strawberry stains on their little faces as they denied picking them from our strawberry patch. I loved most of all hearing them discuss what they learned at church. One Easter the oldest informed us that God was the most powerful being in the world. The second one, challenged him because he thought the wrestler, "Junk Yard Dog," was the strongest man. Promptly the oldest said that God was powerful enough to raise Jesus from the dead and there could be nothing more powerful than that. 

 

But to be honest there were times I found being a mom hard. During my third pregnancy I awoke to a strange man in our bedroom. I was terrified and as a result became sleep deprived and then struggled a lot with post-partum depression. I felt so ashamed because we had three beautiful children at the time and had just bought our first home. I had everything I wanted, but I didn't feel good. The sound of the kids little arguments were like bullets through my heart, which traveled over every nerve in my body. I remember thinking, "When did I sign up for this?" Sadly, I mishandled the arguments and parenting a lot during that time. 

 

I eventually called my pastor and several women befriended me and that helped some. I also got through that season studying the Word, phone counseling with the pastor, and listening to tapes by Jill Briscoe and other great teachers like her. That season exposed lies that I believed without even knowing it. I thought by becoming a believer, my life would be easier and  more carefree, and that I would always feel happy. The key verse above makes it clear that even believers will have tribulation in this life, but somehow I didn't remember hearing it early on or reading it until after this season of pain.

 

There have since been several hard seasons and there have been a few phrases I have come to despise. One is, "God will never give you any more than you can handle!" "You need to work on forgiveness." and "Its a sin to worry!" First, of all none of those phrases occur in the Bible. These comments are often made by thoughtless people who don't want to experience pain or walk with someone as they wrestle with hard subjects like God's sovereignty and suffering. 

 

But what if that is exactly what God calls us to do. I watched my best friend bury her six month old after having already lost one baby to a miscarriage. We were a part of a very close church and we all wept with her. She had lost her parents and the pastor and every other church member had adopted her as family. I remember looking down at the organist's skirt and it was drenched with the tears that had fallen as she played. My friend soon got pregnant with twins and one of the twins didn't make it and I was so  overwhelmed for her and wondered if God knew how much she was suffering. We wept together for a few weeks before I returned home.

 

She told me about sixteen years later how precious her two living children were to her and how much she enjoyed them. Within a week, my friend died and I went back for her funeral. Even though we had been separated by miles, we had kept in touch and everyone understood that we were close. Many people came up to me and hugged me. At the funeral, my friend Joyce came and sat by me and put her arms around me as I looked at my friend in her casket. She didn't offer empty platitudes, but she wept with me as the praise team of which my friend had been apart began to sing songs of worship. Others spent hours reminiscing about her with me. Their willingness to feel their own grief and walk me through mine was a healing balm to my aching heart.

 

My friend, Joyce, lost a grandson about a year ago. They had a memorial service last night. It sounded beautiful and her daughter-in-law, Daphne, wrote about her experience of grief in getting through this last year on Facebook. It has been a hard year and they aren't done grieving yet. But, through it all they have repeatedly shared how God has sustained them through this time and how people have encouraged them. Joyce told me, that another friend in the church had lost her mom and their family who is a part of the praise team got up and lead worship as usual. Joyce has a very tender heart, so I know there were tears shed as they sang. Joyce has always seemed to understand that love is sacrificial and that when one loves well, there will be tears involved. She and her husband have loved well many young families who came through that church and wept with them through losses and goodbyes.         

 

Out of my own healing journey, with God's help I have developed a ministry that I oversee that serves women who have suffered various traumas in their lives. We recently put together a leadership retreat for our leaders. There were fourteen women there who serve in this ministry. We took them through an exercise in which they spent time drawing the trauma's they had experienced in this life and then it took about twelve hours for them to share all that they had drawn on their boards. I cannot tell you how often I thought to myself things like, "No, little girl should ever have to have experienced what she experienced!" "No teenager should have had to experience that trauma!" or "No child should have had to experience that kind of loss!" Some of them shared some of the things that they had experienced as adults. I found myself wondering if they had known what they were in for would they have signed up for the retreat? Even more importantly, would they have become Christians had they know what they were to face? 

 

The next morning one of the leaders lead worship and another served communion and I have to admit that hearing those women sing was one so overwhelming that all I could do was weep at the beauty of it. These women who have experienced real heartache in their lives are women who have been courageous enough to face it and wrestle with it until they could fully trust God and His love and fully accept the stories that He has penned for their lives. These women, like my friend Joyce,  have loved in ways that only God could have equipped them to love. They have forgiven unforgiveable things that only God could have helped them forgive. They have chosen to revisit their own pain year after year as they hear stories similar to their own and walk women through the healing journey in the groups they lead. As we worshipped it hit me that they signed up for this when they became followers of the Traumatized Savior. The suffering they experienced over their life time has given them an understanding of God that is so rich and so deep that it has helped them to be able to hold on when life hurts in the here and now. It has helped them believe when life seems impossible to bear. They have learned to trust God even though their ability to trust was marred by their experiences.

 

Because of my experiences in my church in Mississippi and because of my relationships with these precious ladies, I know God cares when His people hurt because He has enabled these ladies to serve and worship against a backdrop of pain. I believe the suffering in this world is caused by the fall and remains so that we come to the end of ourselves and learn to trust in Him, not just once but day after day after day. He allows suffering so we can understand the depths of His love poured out on us at the Saviors death. I believe He allows suffering for now so that we will develop hearts of compassion, beating with His love that is showering His grace so that we could share how He comforts, He loves, He strengthens, and He sanctifies us through the "This's" of this life.